Eyitayo Oyetunji, the head of the National Population Commission‘s (NPC) Public Affairs Committee, has pleaded with Nigerians to stay indoors during the population count.
Oyetunji stated that correct information is essential for effective planning before to the national population census and that migration will have an impact on this collation.
“We don’t encourage anyone to move anywhere, the census essentially is to collect information for planning purposes and to provide amenities infrastructure you have to have accurate information of the people in an area.
“A census is not a census except everyone is counted and that is our cardinal objective, to ensure that everyone is counted once and in the right place, a census must have universality for it to be a census, every part of the country must be covered and that is our intention,” he said on Monday during a Channels TV program.
The transparency of this exercise, according to the chairman, will be able to counter misconceptions and distrust, as well as foster the development of the government for the people.
“The census is not how many we are, the census primary is to give the basis that will help any administration to provide a better quality of life for the people and to do that, a government requires information, not just about how many persons they are, what are their needs, what is their present status.”
“A new administration requires data to plan, to succeed, to start. You need a blueprint of what people ought to administer, where they are, how many they are, and what they require. Ideally, that is what we should start with.”
He also stated that citizens fleeing their homes to live elsewhere would undermine the census process.
“It is counterproductive to leave your place and go to your village, it won’t help because the appropriate development planning that should be made for you where you are would not then be made.”
Eyitayo also stated that the census process was not intended to distort election results, but rather to achieve its goal.
“Because of our circumstances, it’s not too surprising that people would want to read the meaning. We ensured that we insulated the census process from the election process.
“That is why we had to wait until after the last elections just to ensure that nobody says that the plan is to use the outcome of the census to influence the outcome of the elections. The elections have been conducted and concluded and then the census is coming.”
He urged Nigerians not to distort the process by traveling, saying that doing so would help to reduce census criminalization.
“Don’t make effort to go elsewhere, you go to school where you are, you use water where you are, you use water where you are, you go to school where you are, you participate in the economic activity where you are and all that is the information we want to collect during the census so that it can enable the administration.”
